The neighborhoods of Albany, New York are listed below.
Arbor Hill
Arbor Hill is an historic neighborhood in northeastern Albany near the Hudson River. Arbor Hill encompasses the area from Clinton Avenue (formerly called Patroon Street) north to the
Livingston Avenue Railroad Bridge (where North Albany begins) and from the
Hudson River
The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...
west to Henry Johnson Boulevard. Arbor Hill was outside Albany's first boundaries as set up in the
Dongan Charter
The ''Dongan Charter'' is the 1686 document incorporating Albany, New York, as a city. Albany's charter was issued by Governor Thomas Dongan of the Province of New York, a few months after Governor Dongan issued a similarly worded, but less det ...
of 1686. The original name of the area was
Colonie. Incorporated as a village on April 9, 1804, Arbor Hill was annexed by the city in 1815, at which time Patroon Street became Clinton Avenue. The name "Arbor Hill" comes from the nickname of the
Ten Broeck Mansion
The Ten Broeck Mansion in Albany, New York was built in 1797. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. A decade later it was included as a contributing property to the Arbor Hill Historic District–Ten Broeck Triangl ...
, an important cultural and historical destination in the neighborhood. Arbor Hill includes Dudley Heights, a residential neighborhood north of Livingston Avenue that was the first location of the
Dudley Observatory
Dudley Observatory is an astronomical observatory originally located in Albany, New York, and now in Loudonville, New York. It is no longer operating as a scientific observatory, but remains the oldest non-academic institution of astronomical res ...
. Demographically, Arbor Hill is predominantly
African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...
.
Buckingham Lake
The Buckingham Lake neighborhood is bordered by Western Avenue on the north, Route 85 on the west, Krumkill Road and New Scotland Avenues on the south, and South Manning Boulevard on the east.
Center Square
Center Square
contains many buildings of architectural significance and is locally famous for its nightlife, entertainment, culture, and dining. Center Square includes the area bounded by Lark Street on the west, Spring Street on the north, South Swan Street on the east and Jay Street on the south, as well as the upper portion of Lancaster Street between Lark Street and Willett Street. It is included in its entirety within the
Center Square/Hudson–Park Historic District
The Center Square/Hudson–Park Historic District is located between Empire State Plaza and Washington Park in Albany, New York, United States. It is a 27-block, area taking in both the Center Square and Hudson/Park neighborhoods, and Lark ...
. Center Square is also notable for its close proximity to Washington Park. Center Square and the Hudson/Park neighborhood to the south are often compared to New York City's
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
for their eclectic mix of residential and commercial uses, including bars, night clubs, restaurants, and unique stores. Albany's gay culture is vibrant in this area.
Eagle Hill
Eagle Hill
is a residential neighborhood in western Albany near the Town of Guilderland that is named for the Eagle Hill Cemetery. Eagle Hill is a large neighborhood "bounded by the
. Averell Harriman State Office Building Campusto the north, parts of Krumkill Road and the State Thruway (Interstate 87) to the south, an assortment of streets to the west (including Arch Avenue, North Bridge Drive and Wood Street), and Route 85 and the Buckingham Lake neighborhood to the east." Eagle Hill is an ethnically diverse community that has been described as "a tranquil, pretty place with narrow, tree-lined streets and small city lots with a mix of housing styles."
Manning Boulevard
While Manning Boulevard runs for several miles from the north side of Albany to the south side of the city, the Manning Boulevard neighborhood "encompasses the area on both sides of Manning Boulevard between Washington and Western Avenues."
This small neighborhood is unusual in the City of Albany because of the carriage paths that run on either side of this stretch of Manning Boulevard. According to the Manning Boulevard Neighborhood Association, these carriage paths were created in the late nineteenth century.
Melrose
Melrose is a neighborhood east of the State Office Campus which features mostly one-family homes and includes Rosemont Park. Located in western Albany, Melrose is roughly bounded by Washington Avenue to the north, Western Avenue to the south, Brevator Street to the west, and Manning Boulevard to the east. Melrose Avenue itself is built on the right-of-way of the first passenger railroad in the state of New York, which ran from Albany to
Schenectady
Schenectady () is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-largest city by population. The city is in eastern New Y ...
. The historic
Jesse Buel
Jesse Buel (January 4, 1778 – October 6, 1839) was an American newspaper publisher, politician, and agricultural reformer.
Early life
Jesse Buel was born on a farm in Coventry, Connecticut, the youngest of 14 children. At the age of 12 he ...
House is located in Melrose. Melrose has been described as "a cute family neighborhood with some history" and "a quiet, pretty place with older houses in a wide assortment of styles."
Normanskill
The Normanskill neighborhood draws its name from the
Normans Kill
The Normans Kill is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 3, 2011 creek in New York's Capital District located in Schenectady and Albany counties. It flows southeas ...
, a creek that forms part of Albany's southern boundary. Normanskill includes the former Hamlets of Hurstville and Karlsfeld, which were annexed from the Town of Bethlehem in 1967.
North Albany
North Albany was settled in the mid-17th century by the Patroon of Rensselaerswyck and his tenants and later became a hamlet in the town of Watervliet. North Albany is located roughly between the Town of
Colonie, New York
Colonie is a town in Albany County, New York, United States. It is the most-populous suburb of Albany, and is the third-largest town in area in Albany County, occupying approximately 11% of the county. Several hamlets exist within the town. ...
and Village of
Menands, New York
Menands is a village in Albany County, New York, United States. The population was 3,990 at the 2010 census. The village is named after Louis Menand. The village lies inside the town of Colonie and borders the northern city line of Albany.
H ...
to the north, the
Livingston Avenue railroad bridge to the south, the
Hudson River
The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...
to the east, and Van Rensselaer Boulevard to the west.
Park South
Tucked between University Heights and the southern edge of
Washington Park, the small neighborhood of Park South underwent urban renewal efforts in the early 21st century, with existing housing units being removed or renovated and new office, commercial, and apartment buildings being added.
Pine Hills
The Pine Hills neighborhood is roughly bounded by Washington Avenue to the north, South Lake Avenue to the east, Woodlawn Avenue and Cortland Street to the south, and South Manning Boulevard to the west. Pine Hills received its name from the Albany Land Improvement Company in 1891. The neighborhood consists mainly of freestanding multi-unit, duplex, and semi-detached houses and is home to
Albany High School, the LaSalle School,
the College of St. Rose, and the Alumni Quad of the
University at Albany
The State University of New York at Albany, commonly referred to as the University at Albany, UAlbany or SUNY Albany, is a public research university with campuses in Albany, Rensselaer, and Guilderland, New York. Founded in 1844, it is one ...
. The area of Pine Hills east of Main Avenue and north of Myrtle Avenue is commonly referred to as the "
student ghetto
A student quarter or a student ghetto is a residential area, usually in proximity to a college or university, that houses mostly students. Due to the youth and relative low income of the students, most of the housing is rented, with some cooperati ...
" due to its predominant population of college students, many from Long Island or New York City.
South End
A large and diverse area of Albany, the South End consists of several smaller neighborhoods. Neighborhoods within the South End include the following:
Delaware Avenue
Delaware Avenue is a main entrance to the city from the south, specifically the
Bethlehem
Bethlehem (; ar, بيت لحم ; he, בֵּית לֶחֶם '' '') is a city in the central West Bank, Palestine, about south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000,Amara, 1999p. 18.Brynen, 2000p. 202. and it is the capital o ...
/
Delmar area. The Delaware Avenue neighborhood
is located southwest of the
Empire State Plaza. Delaware Avenue is the western border of the South End. Only a small part of Delaware Avenue is considered the "Delaware Neighborhood". In recent years, Federal stimulus money was invested into the neighborhood to build new streets, lighting, trees, and contribute to safety.
Mansion District
The Mansion neighborhood is dominated by the
Governor's Mansion for which it is named. In the Mansion neighborhood, all major 19th-century architectural styles are represented.
Italianate
The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...
is the most widely represented style in the district, and it is present in many levels of sophistication. A number of buildings use elements of both the
Greek Revival
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...
and
Italianate
The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...
styles, but there are also some highly refined examples of these individual styles. There are also some unusual examples of the application of
Gothic Revival
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
decoration to
rowhouse
In architecture and city planning, a terrace or terraced house ( UK) or townhouse ( US) is a form of medium-density housing that originated in Europe in the 16th century, whereby a row of attached dwellings share side walls. In the United State ...
construction.
The Dunes
The Dunes is a neighborhood located in the long, narrow western protrusion of Albany known as the
Pine Bush, west of Crossgates Mall. According to the City of Albany website, "the neighborhood has a distinctly suburban feel."
Rapp Road Community Historic District
The Rapp Road Community Historic District is a 14-acre (5.7 ha) residential area that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. The District is a rare intact example of a
chain migration
Chain migration is the social process by which immigrants from a particular area follow others from that area to a particular destination. The destination may be in another country or in a new location within the same country.
John S. MacDonal ...
community from the
Great Migration—the movement of 6 million African-Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West that occurred between 1916 and 1970.
[''Accompanying 18 photos, undated''](_blank)
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The Rapp Road Community Historic District lies along Rapp Road between Pine Lane and the South Frontage Road of Washington Avenue Extension. The District lies just north of the boundary between the City of Albany and the Town of Guilderland.
University Heights
University Heights is home to the Albany College of Pharmacy
Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (formerly Albany College of Pharmacy) is a private, independent college with campuses in Albany, New York and Colchester, Vermont. ACPHS was named the #1 Value-Added college or university in the cou ...
, Albany Law School
Albany Law School is a private law school in Albany, New York. It was founded in 1851 and is the oldest independent law school in the nation. It is accredited by the American Bar Association and has an affiliation agreement with University at A ...
, Sage College of Albany
Sage College of Albany, SCA for short, was located at 140 New Scotland Avenue, Albany, New York, 12208. Along with Russell Sage College and the Sage Graduate School, it was one of the three colleges that made up The Sage Colleges. It was also ho ...
, and Albany Medical College
Albany Medical College (AMC) is a private medical school in Albany, New York. It was founded in 1839 by Alden March and James H. Armsby and is one of the oldest medical schools in the nation. The college is part of the Albany Medical Center, which ...
, which is part of the Albany Medical Center.
West Hill
West Hill stretches from Central Avenue north to Tivoli Hollow, and from Henry Johnson Boulevard west to Manning Boulevard. A low-income neighborhood, West Hill is dominated by Central Avenue, which is Albany's " Main Street" and an important thoroughfare into Albany, and by Clinton and Livingston Avenues. West Hill is a primarily African-American neighborhood.
Other neighborhoods
* Beverwyck
* Helderberg
* Hudson/Park
* New Scotland/Woodlawn
* Pastures
Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or swine ...
* Sheridan Hollow
* Washington Square
* West Hill
* Whitehall
See also
*History of Albany, New York
The history of Albany, New York began long before the first interaction of Europeans with the native Indian tribes, as they had long inhabited the area. The area was originally inhabited by an Algonquian Indian tribe, the Mohican, as well as the ...
*
* Streets of Albany, New York
*Washington Park Historic District (Albany, New York)
Washington Park in Albany, New York is the city's premier park and the site of many festivals and gatherings. As public property it dates back to the city charter in 1686, and has seen many uses including that of gunpowder storage, square/par ...
References
External links
{{Commons category, Neighborhoods in Albany, New York
Neighborhood Map
map of the various neighborhood association boundaries -Link Broken.
Google Maps overlay
various neighborhood associations boundaries
Neighborhoods in Albany, New York